Reckless
by H-thar
Summary: AU: AiR universe - Valentine's Day gift fic for readers of "Somewhere in Between" who wanted a little segment dedicated to Maqui and Lucil's relationship in the story (though you won't see her listed as a character since she wasn't a choice). Fits neatly into the timeline of chapter 11.


**A/N: This is a Valentine's Day gift fic for my awesome readers ^_^ Yes, I know Valentine's Day was actually a couple of days ago, but I wasn't going to just START this one-shot and put all this effort in only to NOT finish it because I was late for posting. *takes breath* Ugh. Anyway, I really liked the idea of giving Lucil and Maqui a little segment to themselves, especially since the split POV of my big story doesn't give me much of a chance. For a frame of reference, this one-shot fits in tidily between the last two scenes of Somewhere in Between's chapter 11, "Bringing Me Back" - so it's right between the scene in Serah's kitchen and the closing scene in the bunker where Hope is about to leave. It takes place the afternoon of the day BEFORE they're leaving for the Settlement again. **

**Enjoy, and please leave reviews so I know if this was a good and worthwhile undertaking or not!**

Reckless

[Songs for Valentine's Day one-shot: "Run" - Vampire Weekend; "I Hate Seagulls" - Kate Nash]

_Guess it's back to crappy food and burnt coffee tomorrow, _Maqui thought to himself as he meticulously inspected his radiance panels on the underside of the transport's front end. It wasn't a foreign sensation to be leaving, but he often wondered if the years of stability with NORA had made him a little too dependent, _vulnerable_ to the sting of loss - something he really thought his childhood in the orphanage had killed off for good.

Sighing in frustration, Maqui pressed his forehead to the panel in front of him. He knew that his tireless striving to be independent had been shot down years ago - ever since Serah dragged in the drowned rat of a boy he'd bothered to mentor. He didn't particularly like how he'd come to count on Hope's company to feel secure since then. Goddess only knew when his best friend would get _himself _killed off.

But worst of all, Maqui only seemed to be making things harder on himself. Now, in addition to flying away from most of his family and friends per usual, he also faced the special brand of pain that came with leaving his girlfriend behind.

That was a thought. Him, with a girlfriend. It sounded like a bad joke in his head.

_Pfft, girlfriend. Is she really? _Lucil didn't strike him as the type to belong to anyone. Not for lack of his own wanting or trying to claim her, he just imagined himself to be a foolish little chocobo that had miraculously captured the attention of a phoenix. He wasn't going to kid himself - the woman had a mind of her own and could very well burst into flame at the drop of a hat.

Still, whether or not she was in fact his girfriend and whether or not it would suck to endure whatever awkward goodbye scene was in store, he wanted to see her before they left. Perhaps half a minute passed while he considered a memorable approach to bid her farewell - something that didn't cross the line between endearing and enraging. Then, as if his mind had gained summoning powers, Maqui spied a telltale flash of red across the hangar from his vantage point under the transport, that bright spot of her hair bobbing and growing as Lucil made her way over. He didn't figure the soldier was in the best frame of mind, based on her gait. In a good mood, she would've approached more like a sauntering cat and less like a stalking tiger. This was tiger mode.

Using his good leg, he pushed back from the radiance panels - none of which had suffered more than minor scratches from their transit - then smirked and called out, "Heya! Sucky day at work?"

Silence. This was a terrible sign. Lucil finally arrived and loomed above him, looking down with a tight expression that made him second guess if it was anger or some other turbulent emotion driving her.

"Let's just get out of here," she ground out, the forced calmness of her tone making Maqui scratch his head. He had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't witnessing the _aftermath _of something wrong from her day, he was witnessing its continuing spiral into a dark pit of wrongness.

"Just... out of the hangar, or off base?"

_Whatever this is, I guess my best play is to be accommodating if I want to live, or at least not end up with more broken parts than a leg._

_Ugh, why the hell can't I get my own spare parts yet? Someone's probably out there making leaps and bounds in the field of prosthetics..._

That was the track of his thoughts as Lucil abruptly extended her hands to help him up, retrieving his crutch as soon as he stood. She muttered as she led him toward the exit, "Let's go _far_. I've got a velo."

"Ha, good thing," Maqui teased, steadily gimping along. "_Far_ for me right now is pretty disappointing."

No laugh. No response besides a continued determination to leave the hangar and get on the velocycle. This was further proof of the spiral into a dark pit of wrongness that Maqui had imagined, and he actually felt nervous clambering onto the seat behind Lucil, his crutch abandoned against the wall. If it hadn't been for the obvious danger of flying off, he would've opted to _not _hold onto her waist.

"So..." he tried, unsure if she could hear him over the wind as they sped across base, "Got a destination in mind?" His usual guess would've been Lebreau's pub - not that Lucil was acting anything like usual. It was only moments later that they whizzed past the Vestige without so much as slowing down, eliminating that possibility.

Lucil didn't say a word at first, but once they had skirted the chocobo ranch and were well on their way to the treeline, she spoke up. "I'm just looking for somewhere quiet and away. Know any place like that?"

Without the aid of the transport, Maqui thought it over and found his options dwindling. He hadn't honestly covered much of the ground between the base and the many sites they had taken missions to for surveying, especially not to the east of Aerma Proper, but that seemed to be Lucil's intended direction to flee. Finally, the sight of a familiar fixture poking above the tangle of greenery ahead sparked an idea.

"There's an abandoned windmill over that way," he offered, pointing past her shoulder to the partially rusted blades in the distance. "We cleared a path to it a couple years back, and I don't think the wildlife's stuck around since."

_At least, they weren't around last time I was here._

The old windmill had become a secret base of sorts for Maqui over the past two years - a sanctuary when he needed to think. Utilizing the location had been convenient back then, as he had devoted weeks to just studying the structure in preparation for their mission to introduce Settlement engineers to Pulsian wind energy technology. He knew every beam and bolt of it, and he knew that nothing and no one disturbed its solitude.

Lucil merely nodded her acceptance and stayed on track. They wove down the rough forest path, bumping over roots with enough care that Maqui could tell she was minding his leg, and reached the base of the windmill in less than twenty minutes. Artfully, she skidded to a stop right next to a partially-rotted door.

"Yeah... this isn't creepy at all," she muttered, finally sounding something other than tense and upset, and swung off the velo. Up close, the windmill towered above them, a skeletal wooden frame covered with climbing vines that had muscled their way to the highest and farthest reaches, even draping from the blades. The latticework itself stood within a weather-beaten and crumbling building, the lower portions of its supports hidden behind the walls.

It admittedly fit the profile of an ideal horror flick setting, but there was a key redeeming factor - one that Maqui quickly pointed out.

"I know it's a wreck, maybe even haunted by Pulsian ghosts, but just take a look at the view."

Lucil eventually shifted her focus from the overgrown handiwork to gaze outward, past the cliff on which everything stood, and her violet eyes widened. Unimpeded by trees, they could see the entire landscape to the northwest for miles. The late afternoon sun had begun to set the ledge, the windmill, and everything it touched ablaze.

The edge was less than a stone's throw from them, and she recovered her composure to absently kick a loose rock into the ravine below. "Romantic. I'll give you that."

"You think I've had much use for a romantic hideout?" Maqui scoffed, rolling his eyes. "It's just a good place to clear your head - the epitome of 'quiet and away.' I wasn't tryin' to trick you or anything."

"Wouldn't've been your brand of trickery," Lucil replied flatly. She said nothing more as she helped him from the velocycle and supported his bad side for the short walk to the edge, where they sat in silence once again. Her eyes remained fixed toward some point in the distance, dark and impassive.

After a few minutes of chewing his lip and trying not to fidget, Maqui finally asked, "Wanna tell me what's eating you?"

"That's what I've been trying to decide," Lucil huffed, exasperated. She leaned forward to prop her chin in her hands. "You're not gonna like it."

"Is this the same thing that was pissing you off earlier, or something else?"

"It all comes back to the same issue," she muttered, running a hand through the flaming layers of her hair. "Lebreau was teasing me about you last night - started out harmless at first, just the usual 'ha ha you're dating my little brother' stuff that I'd expect from her. But then she crossed a line." Pausing for a deep breath, Lucil hesitated before continuing, her eyes seeming to hunt for the words she needed in the base of the ravine.

A minute later, she forced it out. "She said... I must really have a 'thing' for aviation mechanics. As if I just went along scanning the population for this one criterion and _bam! _I'm off on a mission to engage the target! She made it sound so... _ugh_. Insulting. Definitely insulting to me, and to you, too!"

_Well, everyone knows you had a crush on Hope for a while, but she shouldn't have dragged it up like that._

"You've been stewing on this since last night?" Maqui asked, even more confused. He could understand why it would've bothered Lucil and completely agreed that Lebreau had pushed the envelope, but her anger shouldn't have seemed so fresh after the passage of hours.

"Yeah, but I'm getting over _that_ part," Lucil admitted. She drew her knees up to her chest and rested her arms atop them, sighing heavily. "We all know Lebreau's got zero tact sometimes. What's worse is how I reacted."

Maqui cast a sly glance at her. He could easily imagine the sequence of events. "Did ya just slap her, or say something really nasty?"

_Both would've been totally merited. Kinda wish I'd been there to see it..._

"Neither," she stated, eradicating the images half-conjured in his head. "I went back to the barracks, lost a bunch of sleep, ended up taking it out on my trainees at work, and vented to Serah the first chance I got today - right before I came to the hangar, to be specific."

Failing to see how a chat with the gentle and understanding Serah Villiers could have possibly led to Lucil's agitated state, he shook his head in total bewilderment, then shifted to face her as best he could, his brow furrowing.

"How the hell is that a bad reaction?" Maqui asked incredulously, crossing his arms. "You don't seem _guilty _for ranting about your problems to Serah, and I'm pretty sure there's nothing she could've done to piss you off."

"I'm not mad at Serah." Lucil's voice got frighteningly quiet, and Maqui honestly hoped she would go back to yelling again. The combination of that voice and how her shoulders slumped was just wrong - like some rainstorm had come along and doused her fire, leaving her to smoke in soggy misery.

He wanted to ask her who or what she _was_ mad at, but that seemed thoughtlessly abrupt. Instead, Maqui tried to treat the conversation lightly and asked, "Did she give you some good advice, then? She's usually pretty spot-on with that stuff."

Somehow, that made it worse. He would've expected any reaction other than the tortured groan he got in response. Lucil buried her face in her hands and growled through them, "Ugh, I'm such an idiot! She was right."

"Whoa, wait a minute... I-I didn't mean-" Maqui hurriedly stammered, attempting to recover as he dared to scoot a bit closer and place a light hand on her shoulder.

"I know you didn't," Lucil cut in. She slowly dropped her hands, letting her forehead dip to her knees, and went silent again.

Minutes passed, the reddening sun sinking lower in the west, before Maqui got up the courage to try and comfort her. Words didn't seem to be helpful, so he wrapped his arm around Lucil's shoulders and gently pulled her in. It was hard to believe, smelling her sun-baked hair and feeling the summer heat radiating from her skin, that she could even stand to be close to another person, much less need it.

"Look, you don't owe me any explanations or confessions, or whatever it is that you're trying to say," he offered at length. "I'm only here to help you fix the problem, if I can."

Oddly enough, Lucil gave a broken laugh. "You're really something else, blondie. I don't think anyone gives you enough credit for what you bring to the table."

"What, a measly fifty gil?" Maqui quipped, squeezing her once. "You can't even get a decent potion for that kind of buy-in, and I never win the pot. Cards are the devil."

"Smart-ass. You know what I'm talking about - you've got a lot to offer. Creativity, skills, support... hell, a good _laugh_."

He scoffed again, tracing a pattern on her arm. "Well apparently _you_ give me more than enough credit, and I'm pretty sure Hope does, too. I don't want a horde of fans."

"Just him, huh," she muttered uncomfortably.

"Uh... yeah. He's my best friend. Don't get me wrong - NORA's my family and I love those guys to death, but there's a certain level that they're never gonna get about me. They _know _I can do a lot of different stuff, and I'm sure they appreciate it, but I'm forever the pranking kid brother to them." Maqui half-smiled to himself in sad amusement. "Lucky for me, I've branched out."

_And given myself a lot more limbs to lose._

Lucil quietly confirmed, "So you need people like me... and Hope, to take you seriously."

"More or less," he replied with a short nod.

Suddenly, she straightened up within his hold, twisting so that she could finally look him in the eye. Warring emotions freely clashed across her face, and again Maqui was at a loss as to whether she was frustrated or guilt-ridden or just hurt.

"That's why... I-I've got to tell you..." Lucil stammered reluctantly. She swallowed once and steeled her expression into one of determination. "Serah was right. I owe it to you to be honest."

"Told you to come clean about something, did she?" he teased, trying to lighten the mood. He cocked his head to one side and grinned knowingly. "She's got some gift for bringing out the truth in people. But whatever it is, my offer stands - you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, got it?"

To her credit, Lucil did not flinch. Her eyes were as hard as her words. "I want to. I'll regret it if I don't, and I _really _hate regrets."

"If you insist," Maqui sighed. He released her to lean back on his hands and gaze out at the bloody sun in the distance. It was enough to watch its late rays touch even more fiery highlights to Lucil's hair in his periphery - staring straight at her would've made it harder, if not impossible, for her to say whatever she had in store.

She was looking down at her hands anyway. "I guess you know - like everyone else seems to - that I, um... was interested in Hope a few years back."

"Yep," Maqui said simply. "No surprise there. I saw it coming way before _you _did, back then."

Lucil whipped her head toward him, the skepticism on her face barely in his field of vision but strong enough to be felt anyway as she retorted, "Oh really. Well, aren't you observant."

He chuckled darkly. "If you'd been half that observant, you woulda known he was a lost cause."

Several beats of heavy silence passed. Maqui was just beginning to wish he'd kept his big mouth shut, the cycle of self-beration warming up to start, when her voice cut through the tense atmosphere.

"I _did_ know that," Lucil said bitterly. "Ever been in denial?"

"Oh-ho, I _excel _at it." Maqui glanced her way for a moment, the ghost of a smile on his lips. "You have any idea how long I sat around denying that I liked you?"

It was her turn to laugh, and she shook her head in disbelief. "You're not making this easy..."

"C'mon, how bad could whatever-it-is be? All of that was years ago," Maqui pointed out, picking up a small stone and tossing it off the cliff. "It matters about as much _now_ as that one measly rock in the bottom of the ravine."

When Lucil didn't answer right away, though, a disturbing thought had just enough time to lodge itself in his brain. He narrowed his eyes at the cast on the leg stretched in front of him, focusing on the multicolored names scribbled there. Hope had signed it first, the pretty letters of his name standing out in bold green.

"Unless..." Maqui began, his throat going dry. "Unless you didn't really get over him."

_That kid sure proved the staying power of feelings for someone, after all..._

He felt her hand immediately clamp around his arm, and he faced her with trepidation. Maker knew what she was about to say.

But Lucil looked more perturbed than anything else - he half expected her to slap the fire out of him. "Maqui, do I look like a fool to you?" she growled, tightening her grip. "Like you said, it's been years. Lightning is _my_ best friend, and she loves Hope. I've threatened to _kill _him if he ever hurts her. Besides, I don't just date guys for the hell of it - I haven't wanted to date anyone in ages, but you are _worth _my time. Get it through your thick skull!" She finally relinquished her hold, backing away to cross her arms in a huff.

"For being so observant, you really are dense sometimes."

"Fine. I was wrong," Maqui muttered, the clenching knot in his stomach finally letting up a bit. "But if you're so completely over all of that, what's this awful thing that you're so wound up about confessing to me?"

Slumping forward again, Lucil exhaled heavily. "It's not that bad, just something I regret. I'd regret it more if I kept a secret from you, though. If there's one thing I've learned from watching our two best friends - and let's face it, they're hard to ignore - it's that protecting the people you care about from unpleasant information is stupid."

"Amen to that," Maqui laughed. "So let's hear this secret."

Lucil hooked her fingers tightly on the buckles of her boots, apparently bracing herself. "So... you remember Hope's eighteenth birthday, right?"

"Vaguely. I pretty much remember giving him that wrench and losing yet another series of card games. Beyond that, it's kinda fuzzy," Maqui said, scratching his head. "Why?"

She cleared her throat. "My first regret - I challenged him to a drinking contest."

"And he was an idiot if he took you up on that," Maqui immediately supplied. "But go on."

"Well, he did. Needless to say, he lost," Lucil said simply, still staring down at her hands. "Not that it was a fair contest to begin with, and it only got worse. If I hadn't been a little far gone myself, I might've noticed he was already black-out drunk."

Confused, Maqui raised an eyebrow at her. "But he must've left the pub at some point. I think I would've remembered if he passed out at his own party."

"Yeah, he left," she muttered. "My second regret was definitely walking him home."

"Oh." It was then that Maqui began to really wonder, even fear, what his girlfriend was going to divulge to him. He momentarily sympathised with the reasoning behind keeping a secret from time to time. Swallowing down the feelings, he attempted to be nonchalant. "So he passed out there."

"Eventually, yes."

_Good goddess woman, you're killing me..._

This was obviously the crux of the issue. He surprised himself by outright asking, "Then what was your third regret?"

Lucil took a deep breath and let it go. "I let him kiss me."

Maqui felt the sensation of a very taut balloon deflating inside his chest - all that tension built up for nothing. His mouth dropped open, but only in disbelief that something so simple could've weighed on the soldier for as long as it had. He felt sure a beautiful woman like Lucil had kissed a multitude of guys in her lifetime and probably gone much further, and he wasn't about to hold any of _those _things over her head. Her business was her business.

"What's so bad about that?" he finally asked, still watching her with a puzzled look on his face. "So he kissed you when he was black-out drunk. He likes girls, and you're very attractive. Hell, he kissed _me_ totally sober, and I didn't lose any sleep over it!"

"Also my fault," she muttered, and Maqui's jaw fell open yet again. He'd always wondered who the mastermind had been behind Hope's revenge attack that day, and this was quite the revelation. Seconds later, though, he recovered to bust up laughing.

"Ha, I could totally be offended, but I really don't care. I'm not even into dudes, but I'll admit that it wasn't half bad for being a punishment, and probably his first time trying to kiss anyone other than his mommy," he jibed, pausing to chuckle at the memory again. "Ironic, you know, that you instigated the racking of your future boyfriend. I might've _liked _the kiss if I hadn't already been in searing pain."

Lucil openly glared at his teasing, the burning force of her eyes killing his mirth. "Don't try to make me sound silly for having this regret. It was my fault he was drunk, and it was my decision to kiss him back a-and... really _want _it. Do you know how it feels to take advantage of someone who trusts you to protect them?"

_Now_ he was uncomfortable. Maqui blinked away for a moment and ran a hand through his hair, new doubts crawling over his skin. "But you... just kissed him, right?"

"Yeah," she replied tonelessly. "Then he passed out, and I'm glad he did. I was obviously in no position to be making good decisions for either one of us."

"No, I guess not," he muttered, not really sure where else to go with the conversation. Maqui didn't think he would care, and by all accounts he logically knew he shouldn't care about one simple mistake from almost six years ago, but it stung. He had no qualms about Lucil comparing him to scores of other faceless men from her past, if that was even the case, but he did _not _want to be compared with Hope. Enough people already did that because they had a lot in common and were around each other all the time - he didn't want the same thing to happen with his first real girlfriend.

Lucil clearly noticed the change in his demeanor, and she carefully scooted over to his side, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Are you mad at me, now?"

"Why would I be?" Maqui said, shrugging off that concept along with his own emotions. He may have felt a little cheated or even jealous, but neither reaction was defensible. "If anyone got mad, I'd think it would be Hope, or Lightning, maybe, but you guys are obviously still getting along swell."

_A little surprising that Hope never said a word to _me_. He would've at least been acting weird the next day._

"Actually..." Lucil began tentatively, trailing off. It was easy to see where she was going.

Maqui sighed and finished tiredly, "You never told Lightning, huh. What makes you think Hope wouldn't tell her, anyway? You think he's too ashamed about it?"

"No, he just _can't_," she snapped, pushing up from his shoulder. "He doesn't remember it at all, and I'm half convinced that even if he _did_ remember something, he'd think it was a crazy dream about Light anyway. I-I honestly don't think he saw _me_ there when he kissed me, but that's okay. I never wanted to steal his first real kiss."

And that, Maqui acknowledged, was the saving grace of the whole bittersweet situation. Hope was none the wiser, Lucil didn't think the kiss had meant anything, and Lightning would never know unless she was told - by Lucil, or himself, or Serah, apparently, since she had been to one to badger Lucil about confessing it in the first place.

_Well, ignorance really is bliss sometimes. What the hell were you thinking, Serah?_

Maqui shook his head at the pointless speculation, then watched the sun finally dip below the horizon, beyond ready to move on. He turned to Lucil again and smirked, taking her face in his hands. When her eyes went a little wide, searching his own for an explanation to the sudden gesture, he just smiled even more.

"I can't _not_ see you, you know that? You drive me crazy sometimes."

"So that's your excuse for all those pranks?" she tried to refute, blushing under his hold. "You like to get back at me for killing your concentration?"

"Nah, that was just fun. Little gestures of affection," he teased as he moved in closer. Their noses brushed, and Maqui whispered, "_This _is the crazy me."

_Here goes nothing._

Sure, he had kissed Lucil before. He'd kissed her shortly after they arrived, earlier in the week - more a of a 'good to see you' kiss, but it certainly counted. It had technically been their first kiss.

When he pressed into her lips this time, however, something about the contact felt so much more real. Maqui thought it might've been the solitude, or the fact that he had nothing to prove and there was nothing at all hanging over them anymore. He just wanted to take his time exploring the fascinating woman he'd come to know.

And Lucil seemed more than happy about it, if the surging force of her mouth and body was any indication - she was in a glorious conquest with little resistance. She'd just tested the length of his tongue and gotten a grip on his vest when he felt a push backward, and he took her down with him into the grass and dirt. Neither of them seemed to care about a little additional discomfort. It was the middle of summer, they'd been sweating enough in the humidity already, and she was a living fire unto herself. Maqui expected the heat to consume him - it was boiling his blood wherever they touched, and it intensified the smell of her skin, her hair, _everything. _The salt mixed in to the sweetness of her taste, and he wasn't sure if he was dizzy from intoxication or lack of oxygen.

Sadly, the latter was quite true for both of them. Lucil suddenly pulled back, gasping for breath, and he could hear himself panting as well. She still hovered over him, propped up by her hands on either side of his head. He groaned and tugged at the front of her tank top, the last location his hands had been studying.

"Please... tell me we're not finished..."

She shook her head, giving a breathy laugh. "Are you kidding?" she managed. "I just wanted to tell you... my first name. So you'd know... what to call me."

"What to... call you...?" Maqui's mind was a little muddled, to say the least, but he eventually cottoned on to her meaning. Lucil didn't go around handing out her given name. She had a purpose in mind, and that was for her lover to use it.

He could've sworn his heart stopped. His eyes went wide, and she smiled even wider.

"It's Kate," she said, threading the fingers of one hand into his hair. "And as much as I hate to say this, we should probably go inside that creepy windmill building of yours."

Maqui couldn't speak. His throat was definitely shut up tight, so he just nodded and let her pull him up from the ground. She'd clearly said 'screw it' to his broken leg, and he'd said the same to her past. The extent to which they were recklessly embracing vulnerability would've made him slap some sense into himself if he wasn't so damn happy about it. Whatever his expectations had been about saying goodbye to his girlfriend and numbing himself for departure, they were shot.

_My girlfriend,_ he thought, grinning as he finally started to accept the idea. Not that the term came anywhere near doing justice to the woman helping him limp along, and it confounded him - he was pleasantly surprised when his mind leaped to the rescue.

_Right. It's Kate._


End file.
